Mr. Woodside's Virtual Classroom

The Website (www.mrwoodside.com)
Almost everything that happens in our classroom will be available on mrwoodside.com. All chapter previews (walkthroughs), notes, lab assignments, study guides, and Choose Your Own Assignment sheets are posted under History Unit Guides>Unit Name.  Additionally, you can Contact Me through the website at any time. If you do not want your student’s work or image to appear on the site please send me a note or call me. I hope, however, that you will enjoy seeing them working in my room throughout the year.

Interactive Presentations
Interactive presentations in our class are a modern twist on an old idea. We will use clips from popular movies, television shows and music to bring our history information to life. Last year my students thought it was a punishment when we didn’t do an interactive presentation! When was the last time you felt that way taking notes? You will enjoy these, but more importantly, you will learn from them.
Parents, since our presentations do use media from the popular culture you may wish to view them ahead of time. Every parent has a right to know what their student is doing in school. You can be sure that the presentations conform to both the district standards and to my own but I still encourage you to set up an appointment to view them ahead of time. If there is a concern I can provide edited presentations with the media removed.

Movies
We will not be watching many movies in our class this year. Most movies have no more than 10-15 minutes of really good content so why waste an entire period? Instead, I have taken clips from many movies and put them into our interactive presentations. Below is a sample of those used. Again, all are edited for content.

Movie Clips: Ben Hur, The Gods Must Be Crazy, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Aladdin, The Lion King, The Road to El Dorado, Gladiator, Robin Hood, Mulan, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, First Knight.

TV Clips: King of the Hill, Animaniacs, Looney Toons, The Simpsons, Pinky and the Brain, Saturday Night Live, various commercials and a whole bunch of History Channel/Discovery Channel shows.